Beyond Coffee
by glacier
Summary: Haruko POV, RuHanaRu. This is actually a "Haruko finds out" kind of fic, but angstier. They're all much more mature in this ficlet coz I've sort of set the time frame at about 15 years after high school. ) Coffee, anyone?


Beyond Coffee  
  
I saw them together today. The same way I've seen them together every last Friday of every month since last year. That was when I first found out about them meeting, you see. But who knows how long this has really been going on? I don't know because I've never asked. Nor have I ever mentioned to Hanamichi that I know about them. I felt that that is for the best. After all, we have our 2 children to think of.  
  
You must think I'm a fool, allowing my husband to continue this clandestine relationship. I have to admit, that day last year when I found out about them, I thought about bursting into that coffee shop and crashing their private party. But see, it's not that easy. For this person who is seeing my husband behind my back is a man. And not just any man, but the same man that I had a crush on during high school, Rukawa Kaede.  
  
Aside from this fact, there was something else that stopped me from doing something stupid that day, something about the way they looked at each other, I think, though I can't really put my finger on it. In all respects, they looked and acted like two businessmen having a business lunch, discussing boring business issues and the like. To me, however, who have known and interacted with them since high school, they looked like two people who had been resigned to the very painful fact that love between two men will never be tolerated or accepted.  
  
You can see this in every little thing they did, if you know what to look for. Let me give you an example. When their order came, Rukawa knew exactly how Hanamichi took his coffee; two sugars, no cream. Doesn't seem too significant, does it? But you have to realize, we had already been married 2 weeks before I came to know this fact.  
  
And yet what really ultimately convinced me to let them be went beyond coffee. For when Hanamichi finally stood up to leave, Rukawa smiled at him, a smile as beautiful as it is sorrowful. It was nothing more than a slight curving of his thin lips, a miniscule movement of muscles, and yet it touched me as nothing had ever touched me before. It was the smile of a man defeated by the workings of life, a smile I never thought I would see on Rukawa's face.  
  
It was a smile he wore each and every time it came time for Hanamichi to leave, the same smile I've seen from this same spot in the same nondescript boutique from across the street every last Friday of every month. And each time I see it, my heart goes out to them. For I also know, even if I wanted to release Hanamichi from his obligations to me and to our children, he would never accept it, nor would the community accept it.  
  
And so we continue to live in our own little version of a tragic play, playing our parts like seasoned actors in this stage called life. I discreetly dab at the corner of my eyes while pretending to browse through the rack of colorful blouses. I don't notice the young lady come up to me until she speaks up, "Are you looking for a particular size, Ma'am?" I smile gently at her and say no, instead handing her the blouse I intend to purchase.  
  
And as she rings up my purchase, I remember the other blouses hanging at the back of my closet, twelve other blouses I had bought from this boutique but had never worn. Silent, if beautiful, reminders of each and every single day spent across the coffee shop where two men continue to meet, in a relationship that would never go beyond coffee.  
  
Owari  
  
Right, then! I have absolutely no idea why I wrote this little piece right here, but there you go. shrug It's angsty, I know but for some strange reason, I seem to write angst better than other kinds of fics. Go figure. Anyway, this is the first fic I've written in a LOOOOOONG time so kindly be more lenient, ne. I don't expect raving praise but do leave a review of some sort, k. And visit my site at for more fics. Ja! 


End file.
